


Tomorrow Won't Be The Same

by creatureofhobbit



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28906068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Sometimes Rachel wonders what her life would have been like if she hadn't been a twin.
Kudos: 20
Collections: Fandom Snowflake Challenge





	Tomorrow Won't Be The Same

Sometimes Rachel wonders what her life would have been like if she hadn’t been a twin.

At the same time, she hates herself for thinking about that. Nora was the other half of her, the one who had kept her sane throughout their childhood, the one who could find her in a bad mood and say to her “One, two, three, four, let’s start a thumb war!” and all would be forgotten. So many of the good memories of Rachel’s childhood involve Nora, and if Rachel had to imagine how it would have been without her, then honestly she can see it having been a bleak childhood.

Yet at the same time, she thinks of all the times she had felt they were in competition with each other, and certainly when it came to the Scrabble games the family insisted on, Rachel was always losing. Would it really have hurt her family to have played something more fun once in a while, something that didn’t rely on brain power, something that Rachel might have stood a chance of any other outcome than losing badly? She’d tried suggesting once that they play Monopoly or something, but Nora had become upset at the idea of not playing Scrabble, and Rachel had ended up not asking again, just subjecting herself to the Scrabble nights, wondering how the hell Nora managed to come up with those words while Rachel could barely come up with something like cat. 

It was easier after she’d discovered her talent for diving. Here, at last, was somewhere Rachel could shine, something that could make her parents appreciate her, something Nora was only average at and Rachel would have a chance to be the successful one. (Her parents hadn’t appreciated it the one time she’d said something along those lines, saying that the two girls had different strengths and they shouldn’t compare themselves to each other. Did they really not understand that with all the praise they heaped on Nora for her academic abilities, Rachel was always going to end up negatively comparing herself? Now she no longer had to. She had her diving, her swimming, she had something that was hers and didn’t have to see herself as the inferior sister any more.) 

She could enjoy her relationship with Nora, accept that they had different strengths, see her as her sister and her best friend rather than her rival for the attention of her parents, right up until that day Coach said Rachel didn’t have the right body shape to be a successful diver. In that initial moment, all Rachel had wanted to do was to confide in Nora, to hear her say everything was going to be okay. But then she’d heard her parents talking about how they were changing their plans to watch her event, and she couldn’t talk about it. She had to carry on as though that conversation with Coach never happened, to make sure she could still dive, so that she could still be a daughter her parents could be proud of, rather than the daughter struggling to catch up and knowing she was never likely to succeed.

The thing with Quinn had taken on a life of its own, and Rachel could never have imagined that it would get to where it did. It wasn’t entirely a lie; Rachel didn’t feel she had anything in common with Quinn, and yes, she did feel he was too eccentric…for her tastes. But she only had to spend a few minutes in their company to understand exactly why Nora liked him, could see that he could have been a good match for her.

She’d tried to rationalise it to herself afterwards by saying that Nora didn’t have to listen to what she had said. If Nora had truly loved Quinn, she could have told Rachel to go screw herself, that it was nothing to do with her, that she didn’t care what anyone else thought of her boyfriend. Rachel wasn’t the one who had to date him, after all. Instead, Nora had acted on Rachel’s comments, chosen not to pursue the relationship with Quinn beyond the summer program. Nora had had a choice, and when it came down to it, she’d chosen Rachel. If Nora had chosen to end it, he obviously wasn’t the love of her life, Rachel hadn’t screwed up the romance of the century, right? 

Rachel had kept telling herself that as she realised how miserable Nora was becoming without Quinn, as she kept drafting out those messages to him that she wouldn’t tell Rachel about but Rachel knew anyway. Diving was all Rachel had felt she had going for her, and now with those words about her body shape being all wrong, with her screwup and hitting her head at the championship, her scholarship and Olympic dreams now a distant memory, Rachel felt there was nothing left for her, nowhere for her to shine. But Nora, with her brains…those doors would always be open to her, colleges beating down her door. She had a future. Now Nora was the one with the potential relationship where no one was looking twice at Rachel; yet another person was pushing them apart. 

Nora used to be the only one who truly understood Rachel; Rachel remembered a time when they were kids when they used to try and convince the rest of their class that they had the power to read each other’s minds. Now Rachel looks at Nora and feels she no longer knows her, and worse, that Nora no longer understands Rachel; did Nora really not understand that Rachel was lashing out because she was jealous that Nora had the success, the brains, their parents’ pride in her and now a boyfriend too, while Rachel had nothing?

Rachel doesn’t think it would have changed the outcome if she hadn’t said anything; the hazing would still have gone down in the same way and Quinn would have still died. Yet even as she tells herself that, she’s always conscious of the fact that Quinn’s last few weeks would have been very different had she not interfered; if she hadn’t said anything, the likelihood was that Nora would have continued the relationship beyond the summer, and those last weeks would have been happier for him, for her. She’d been trying to keep the twins together; yet Rachel had pushed them further apart. Sometimes Rachel would catch Nora looking at her and then quickly looking away, and she was sure that Nora was thinking the same thing, that she blamed Rachel.

There’s nothing Rachel can say to help Nora feel better. She blames herself too.

Sometimes, Rachel used to wonder what her life would have been like if she had never had a twin.

She doesn’t have to wonder any more. 

Nora’s gone, lost to the shark attack that had cost Rachel her hand, having only gone in the water at all to save Rachel from the shark. Rachel knows now that Nora had been the mole in the camp, the operative working behind the scenes on this experiment that the rest of them had become unwilling participants in, understands that the others are finding it hard to forgive Nora right now, and part of Rachel agrees. But she also knows that at the last, once again Nora had put her first, had saved her, and that’s what matters. As she still feels the phantom sensation of Nora holding her severed hand, Rachel knows Nora is always with her.


End file.
